Your Custom Text Here
The face of ecstasy: detail from Gian Lorenzo Bernini 1652 sculpture, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa in Rome, and an acid house party in 1993
Whether its chemical and recreational to sexual, spiritual or even religious, music can take you back to an extraordinary high. This week’s theme a musical mood and feeling topic, but can also be a lyrical one …
Read more
Quadrophenia (1979)
Crime, culture, music, identity, fashion? From family belonging to sheer survival, there are many reasons to join a gang, but how do you get out? From street kids to Mafia organisations, this huge and colourful subject has inspired many songs …
Read more
Bumblebee
Time to get busy! From honey to nectar, pollination to special dance moves, lyrics literal or metaphor, or in sounds, with World Bee Day coming up, it’s time to feel the musical buzz of these inspirational insects in all that they mean to humans, and how we should protect them
Read more
It’s just a stage I’m going through: Bregenz Music Festival in Austria
Bars, basements, intimate, sweaty or large or legendary, forests, festivals, stratospheric stadia, snug pubs to prisons, caves to operatic amphitheatres, let's musically celebrate venues and spaces mentioned by, or associated with songs
Read more
Peter Norman, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, 200m medal ceremony, Mexico 1968
Whatever the platform, the genre or message, this week we’re exploring the issue of equality, if not being the same, from gender to race, politics to work, how to get and if it’s even possible, all through lyrics
Read more
Krafty
Early 20th-century experimentalists to MIDI, industrial, dance, new wave, French musique concrete, Japanese chiptune to German elektronische, let’s explore old-school noise and value those valves worldwide
Read more
… made glorious summer by this song of York, canvassing for business …
Step right up! This week we look into the psychology of selling and the heartbeat of bargains across our culture. Retail therapy to ripoff, suggest lyrics all about the intimacy and anonymity of commercial transaction
Read more
Enjoy …
This week it's less about the reality TV competition, instead a much tastier treat into the world of lyrical bagels and brot, cupcakes and buns, breadlines and Bourbons. Take your pick and dig in …
Read more
Dr John Cooper Clarke, the Bard of Salford
Cabbage to Inspiral Carpets, John Cooper Clarke to a visiting Sister Rosetta Tharpe, guest writer treefrogdemon compiles humorous and moving lists from hundreds of songs for last week's tribute topic
Read more
A few of Manchester's famous faces …
As a tribute to the dead, the injured, and all those affected by the Manchester Arena bombing, this week let's suggest songs that capture the culture, character, accents, humour and history of this city
Read more
Sign of the times? Bird is the word? Tweet that.
From sarcasm to situation, dramatic twist to tragic consequence or perspective, let's take a wry look at songs that say one thing, but then reveal another
Read more
A classic boring postcard. Or is it?
Billericay to Barrytown, Rock Creek Park to Reno, Solsbury Hill to Stonehenge, Warwick Avenue to Waterloo? Whether inside cafes, under station clocks or in a tiny box, suggest songs that take you to a specific or lesser-known place
Read more